The stories behind Central Ohio's 9/11 steel
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A piece of the World Trade Center's North Tower at Westerville's First Responders Park. Photo: Alissa Widman Neese/Axios
When the Twin Towers collapsed 25 years ago, 200,000 tons of steel fell to the ground. Many of those mangled beams now stand again as public memorials — including in Westerville and Hilliard.
Why it matters: As time passes, 9/11 is shifting from a recent, shared experience into a distant historical event.
- Those who brought the pieces to Central Ohio hope the artifacts can help keep memories of that day from fading.
The big picture: The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey managed a program distributing around 2,000 pieces of salvaged steel to governments and nonprofits.
- They're now in all 50 states, giving the rest of the nation a tangible connection to Ground Zero's devastation.
Zoom in: Hilliard and Westerville each dedicated a First Responders Park in 2010 to display their artifacts and honor first responders.
Hilliard's park at Center and Main streets grew out of the attacks' aftermath, after residents gathered at a high school football stadium for a memorial because the city lacked a more fitting place to come together.
- It's now among the nation's largest 9/11 memorials, incorporating twisted steel, subway track and a V-shaped I-beam — what Sgt. Suzy Muraco calls a "victory beam."
- Laid sideways, it symbolizes the day America got "knocked down" but persevered, she tells Axios.
Muraco was on the police escort that went to New York in 2010 and brought the pieces home.
- There, she met a Port Authority officer who had worked on 9/11 and lost friends in the attacks, an "out-of-body experience" that underscored the trip's magnitude.
"We need to respect this steel at the utmost," Muraco remembers thinking, "and continue to respect it as a part of our community."
- She now spends every Sept. 11 talking with park visitors, including young students, and ringing a memorial bell at the times each of the four hijacked planes crashed.
In Westerville, a bent, 18-foot beam from just above where the first plane struck stretches toward the sky.
- Plans for the park at 374 W. Main St. predated 9/11, following a Westerville firefighter's death in 1998. After the attacks, retired firefighter Tom Ullom wanted to do even more.
- "My friend had been killed in a fire, and I know how it devastated our small department," Ullom says. "I just couldn't imagine what it must have been like to lose 343 guys."
Ullom says he called officials "pretty much every day for seven years" asking for steel to honor their sacrifice. The persistence paid off.
- In 2008, he and others traveled to Maryland to select a piece stored at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, where it was part of a federal investigation.
- "It was like a steel graveyard," he recalls of walking among the rubble.
Former Westerville Mayor Kathy Cocuzzi, also part of the group, says they chose the twisted piece labeled "C-40" as a symbol of resilience.
- "It turned completely around 360 degrees," she says. "But it didn't break."
